#YouAreEnough30 Blog Challenge: Day 12

Day 12: In Chapter Nine, I hit “rock bottom.” Talk about your own rock bottom moment, and how you found the strength and the courage to rise.

November 12, 2018: My last major rock bottom moment happened around Valentines’ Day 2010. I was 33 and tired of being single which I had been for nearly eight years. The guy I had a crush on (I mentioned him the other day and will refer to him as Mr. Skinny Jeans) started seeing someone else. Why would he be interested in her? What did she have that I didn’t? Well, I won’t talk about her here because this rock bottom moment is more about me and how horrible I felt when Mr. Skinny Jeans chose someone else rather than me.

I was tired of feeling like a failure because I could not seem to get a guy interested in me unless I wanted to settle for someone much older and/or unappealing, even if they were interested in me. In my limited human mind, I believed the lie that I was doomed to a lifetime of singleness. My self-esteem felt like it was at an all-time low. I began having suicidal thoughts again, the first time in ten years. Though I was living my life for the Lord and doing ALL the right Christian things such as regular church attendance, Bible studies, involvement in church, praying often, reading my Bible, and listening to Christian music, I couldn’t understand why I felt so low and miserable.

Several months earlier, Claire, my first basset hound, passed away. I was devastated but one month later, I adopted another basset hound and felt a sense of purpose as I had another fur baby to care for. I had a lot going for me: two part-time jobs (one at the library and the other at a bookstore), continuing my college education (recently graduated with my associate’s degree), my parents, my new fur baby Max, and a church family. How could I be so miserable? Well, my greatest desire was to be married and have a family which was not happening for me. Did God not love me enough? Was I not enough for a good, Godly man to want me? I spent a lot of time wallowing in self-pity over my lot in life.

The day after Mr. Skinny Jeans took his date to our church’s V-Day party, I was devastated and the suicidal thoughts nearly took over my life. I called in sick to my weekend job because I could not stop crying. I did not want to talk to anyone except my parents, whom I lived with. During that hard weekend, Dad and I went hiking. He told me something I would never forget.

When he was in high school, nearly forty years ago, he had a mad crush on someone who rejected him. He told me how much that first rejection affected him and thinking about it still hurt.

“But Dad,” I said. “You and Mom have been married over 35 years. How could it [the past rejection] still hurt?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You just never forget your first heartbreak.”

Then I remembered my first heartbreak: junior high, 1992. That’s a long story I won’t get into. In spite of the wonderful father/daughter bonding that weekend, I was still a basket case on Monday and just could not bear to go to either job that week. The suicidal thoughts frightened me because I did not want to go back to my old ways of relapsing into a suicidal attempt from ten years earlier. I sought counseling and had a consultation appointment that day. It would be more than two weeks before I could get an appointment with a counselor. During the wait time and with the consent of the mental health advisor, I took two weeks off from both jobs for a personal, mental health vacation. I took a road trip to Arizona to visit family.

In spite of the heartbreak I was experiencing, I was determined to remain strong in my faith and keep standing on God’s promises for my life. In spite of feeling down-in-the-dumps, I kept doing ALL the right Christian things, but I learned that I needed to change my attitude and motives. I believed if I did those things then God had to bless me the way I wanted to be blessed. I needed to stop thinking that the only way I would be happy was if my circumstances changed. Instead, I needed to change my character to line up with God’s. This did not mean I had to become Ms. Perfect. During this hard season in my life, God blessed me with a friend who was also in the same boat. Michelle was a year older than I and had never been married. She was (still is) strong in her walk with the Lord and she had high standards when it came to dating. We had walked the road of singleness for nearly seven years, then she got married and I was in a relationship.